


Now You Know You Know It Now (The Jewish Mother Remix)

by afrocurl



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:24:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2106165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afrocurl/pseuds/afrocurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Edie watches closely as Erik finally makes a friend. She doesn't stop watching just because they're not inseparable, nor does she stop when they fight as life gets in the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now You Know You Know It Now (The Jewish Mother Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Now You Know You Know It Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372411) by [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity). 



Edie has seen that Erik’s a boy who doesn’t like a lot of other people, children especially. At the time, she couldn’t tell if he was a misanthrope or taciturn, but it doesn’t matter. She tries her best to get Erik out of the house and to at least see other children around in the hopes that he’ll find someone to whom he can relate. Rarely works. He sits alone most days as she talks with the other mothers, sharing stories as she can about what Erik was like as a younger boy along with recipes and tidbits of useful information to younger mothers.

The park down the street from their house is perfect for what she wants: it has a nice jungle gym set for the smaller kids and plenty of open space for some of the larger and older kids who want to kick around balls and maybe gossip themselves. But Erik’s usually sitting by himself on a bench away from all the other mothers and clearly away from the other children.

Today, Edie notices that there’s another boy who’s also sitting by himself. Not far off from Erik’s seat. The boy’d come in a sleek towncar, been dropped off without ceremony. Then there isn’t a sign that the boy’d been left at all. Except the boy sits near Erik and does nothing.

Edie goes back to talk to the woman at her side and only catches glimpses of Erik after that. He’s staring at the boy as if Erik could swallow the boy whole; Erik’s eyes are rapt and there’s a small smile on his face. She can’t quite see why the boy’d been left here at all, but she won’t say anything.

Maybe thirty minutes later, the boy’s sitting next to Erik now, and the two of them are talking in hushed tones. One of the other boys about Erik’s age is then standing over them, demanding things from this other boy that makes Edie’s heart ache. 

She knows Erik has sense to stand up for what’s right and what’s wrong, and she watches as best she can as Erik does just that. Erik and his new friend sit side by side and soon she watches a bottlecap fly towards the one boy who’s standing up and saying things that no child should ever say to a peer. Another boy punches Erik’s new friend in the stomach and Erik goes after the first boy and everything turns into madness. Edie rushes to see how badly everyone’s hurt, but then suddenly she just _STOPS_. 

There’s a faint voice around her, whispers of secrets that no one should want revealed - a secret of one of the boys who was taunting Erik’s friend. The one boy who started it all eventually leaves, and Edie feels herself sag at the weight of what’s happened.

She’ll talk to Erik later about using his powers like that, but maybe not tonight because the other boy at Erik’s side is curled up into a ball and Erik’s saying something - anything - to the boy in that way that tells Edie they mean something to each other. By the time she’s at Erik’s side, the boys are almost lost in each other. That boy - and she feels bad that she doesn’t know his name yet - he’s still at Erik’s side and Erik’s face is bright, despite the punches and the pain he must feel.

She can’t go without tutting over their injuries and telling Erik, “You can’t just go around using your powers like that. Not even to protect someone else. Now, who is it you’re protecting? Tell me his name so I can know who I’m going to make rugelach for now.”

“She’s going to try to feed you your body weight in strudel, just wait,” Erik says, and Edie just tuts some more because she knows she can’t make that much pastry in one day.

“Erik Lehnsherr,” she says, “that is first of all not true, and anyway you never complain, you eat enough of it, and would your friend like to come home with us for supper, and seriously, tell your mother his name.”

“His name’s Charles,” Erik tells her and then she looks from Erik to Charles to Erik’s hand on Charles’ shoulder and beams at the two of them.

Charles does come to dinner, and smiles as Edie puts plate after plate of food in front of the two of them.

-

Charles doesn’t stop coming to their home, and she smiles and coos each time the sleek black car drops him off. Through some miracle she doesn’t know, Erik gets a scholarship to Charles’ school and the two of them are fast friends. They need time to work on group projects, and Edie never complains.

She knows that they might be more than friends, but she never says anything because she knows Erik doesn’t have many friends. Never once did she question what brought Charles and Erik together, but every now and again, Charles’ mentally shares his happiness at having someone in his life who cares for him. 

Edie gives back as much love and affection as she can and hopes that it’s enough for Charles.

-

July before their Senior year arrives and Charles and Erik together are a mess of emotions about college applications and scores and everything else. Both of them are a frantic clash of ideas and Edie can only do so much to help them work through their respective lists of schools.

Erik’s list is some SUNY locations and a few liberal arts colleges that have need-blind admissions while Charles’ has Ivys, Little Ivys and the rest of the top universities on the west coast.

“Edie,” Charles says one night after the two of them have spent the day at Coney Island, “will you look over my essay?”

She gives me a hug and says, “Of course, dear. Anything for you.”

He and Erik mean the world to her and she’ll do anything for them.

-

On the day that the two of them graduate, Erik holds Charles’ hand for dear life and says, “Ma, Charles and I are a couple.”

Earnest and heartfelt, it doesn’t shock Edie, though she thinks it was meant to.

“Oh dears, I’ve known that for years now. No one’s come close enough to Erik for you two to be anything else.”

“But you didn’t say anything,” Erik says as if the earth’s gravity has gone haywire.

“I was waiting for you two to say something. It’s personal.”

Charles’ mental presence presses against her’s and she lets him in and look around; she hasn’t kept her thoughts a secret, but she hasn’t kept them buried deep that Charles won’t find them in a minute. “She means it, Erik,” Charles says, “she was giving us space.”

“After how you two met, it only felt right.”

And it was right. To let them find each other, first as friends and then as lovers. They needed it just as she needs to hear it from their lips today.

“Now, no more worrying about it. I love you both and if we don’t hurry up, we’ll be late for the big day.”

-

Charles and Erik after that aren’t perfect, far from it. Life complicates everything for them, and it makes Edie sigh. Charles’ mother dies from liver failure, leaving Charles everything in his family’s estate: three billion dollars plus a mansion in Westchester.

Edie stays out of their fights; Erik’s strong will to provide for Charles cracking even more than it had when Erik learned that Charles had given the money Erik needed for high school. They fight, and they break up, and Edie can’t do anything.

Because she knows that they love each other, right as rain they do. But Erik’s pride and Charles’ determination to see his father’s legacy survive the horrors of his step-father get in the way.

Erik leaves the apartment they share in the city and comes back to his old room, miserable and frustrated.

Words only go so far when it comes to helping Erik see reason, so she just gives him space and the time to have a life without Charles for the first time in thirteen years.

The fight - one that plasters all of Page Six - only lasts six weeks before Charles appears at their door, looking haggard and weighted down.

_Erik, I love you and I can’t be the Xavier they want me to be without you._

Edie’s surprise at Charles looping her in is enough to know that this is serious and before she can start to yell at Erik to stop making Charles feel horrible, Erik’s out of the door and kissing Charles.

-

Fifteen years after they met, to the day, Edie watches her two boys walk down an aisle, hand in hand as a married couple.

No one at the reception asks her how she feels about it, because the story of how they met has been fodder for the press since the engagement, but if anyone did, she can honestly answer that Charles has been her son for fifteen years.

It only took them this long to make it official.

**Author's Note:**

> [Redacted] did a quick beta, but any remaining errors are mine.
> 
> Luni - I hope you enjoy this as one small gift back for all you do.


End file.
